


first kiss(es)

by orphan_account



Category: Smosh
Genre: Bisexual Shayne Topp, Bisexuality, Coming Out, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Kissing, M/M, Pride, Sexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:01:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24961231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Shayne has had many first kisses in his life. Each one surprises him every time.
Relationships: Courtney Miller & Shayne Topp, Damien Haas/Shayne Topp
Comments: 6
Kudos: 137





	first kiss(es)

**Author's Note:**

> happy pride month lads! wrote this celebrating pride! LGBTQ+ people out there -- i love you. stay strong. we will get through this!

Shayne's technical first kiss is at the age of 5 or 6. The details are fuzzy, and he almost has to view the experience itself through a blurry lens, obfuscating the past from him.

He remembers the context vaguely, but not the precise words that he uttered or why he felt the need to conclude the moment with a kiss. Being a child was honestly pretty weird, he had no clue how his adolescent brain had worked and why the things that he did made any lick of sense to him at all. (Especially in the contexts he DOES remember, and the actions that he did during them.)

The other boy says something, and the only thing that Shayne remembers is thinking that that boy was the smartest person he had ever met in his entire life. Looking back, Shayne knows that he wasn't particularly attracted to the boy (they had rarely spoken before that, but they had been "friends," in the way that anyone that's in your kindergarten class with you and allows you to play with some of their toys is a friend), neither was he particularly set on kissing someone that day. The way that he justified things in his head was that he had seen that similar trope used in cartoons (Bugs Bunny had a very profound effect on him during his youth), and didn't really think of any other way to interact, since it was, in actuality, a pretty specific situation, honestly.

"You're a genius!" he said, biting back the urge to imitate Bugs Bunny's voice as he spoke, and then he put his hands on the back of the other boy's head and planted a tiny, barely a second long smooch on the corner of his mouth.

The boy had looked at him with wide brown eyes, an expression that he couldn't figure out then, and sure as hell couldn't figure out now. It was a mixture, that was certain, but it wasn't particularly one dominant emotion that Shayne had a word for. He had then looked at the teacher, same incredulous eyes wide with confusion, terror, and everything else he was feeling.

The teacher had a similar but more easily recognizable look to her. A mix of shock, confusion, and the tiniest bit of "Jesus Christ, how am I going to explain that a random boy kissed another boy for no reason on the playground during recess to his ultra-conservative parents?"

That's where Shayne's memory clarity pretty much ends. He doesn't remember what punishment he was given, if he was given one at all. He doesn't remember if he ever told his family about it afterward. He doesn't remember if the boy ever talked to him again. He doesn't even remember what the boy looked like besides his eyes. Hell, he couldn't place a name to him even if he'd wanted to.

But it was still his first kiss, and it was actually pretty foreshadowing to the rest of his life.

* * *

Shayne's first kiss with a girl is more clear to him, and it happens at around age 10.

Fifth grade is a weird time -- the girls and boys were separated one day for different talks and the two groups both came back as changed people, he had just recently learned that women didn't have the same parts as he had (which still blew his mind at this point, if he was being honest), and there were notes being passed around like clockwork every few weeks.

He remembers passing a note of his own to a girl in his class. She was a really kind, if a little shy, blonde girl that he had known since third grade. He isn't sure if he truly did have a precocious crush on her or if he just felt like he needed to have a crush on a girl because all of the other boys in his class did. Either way, he passed her the scribble-script note, and she checked the "yes" box.

He doesn't quite remember her name. He thinks it starts with a K, and it was probably something relatively normal for the time, like Katie or Kayla or Kim. Probably Kayla.

She met him under the biggest tree on the front of the school, during recess. He had saved the apple his mom had cut into eighths for him and handed some of the slices to her, and she smiled at him with one of her front teeth missing because she had fallen off her bike a couple days before. He hadn't minded that she didn't have her tooth, he thought she was really nice and pretty without it.

She had asked him, in a voice that was surprisingly low and a bit raspy for how light and airy she looked, "Does this make us boyfriend girlfriend?"

He remembers that he had shrugged in response. "Do you wanna be?"

"I don't know. Can we kiss?"

He remembers being a bit hesitant at first, because the "cooties" that his friends had instilled in him during the early years of school were still lingering in the back of his mind, and he didn't want to catch them.

But then he gave a nod, reluctant but willing, and she leaned forward to give him a peck on the lips. Somehow, it had even lasted for a shorter time than his first kiss. She had been a bit forceful, and they had essentially headbutted each other upon impact, so that could have been the reason why it didn't last as long. (Now that he thinks about it, that's almost absolutely the reason why, but for a long time he thought that he had just been that bad of a kisser.)

K pulled back and she said, "Owie, that hurt! Um, we're not boyfriend girlfriend, is that okay?"

He nodded and said, "Okay," despite being a bit sad about it later when he got home, and that essentially stopped him from talking to other girls in his class for the next 4 years or so.

He sometimes wonders where K is now, and if she ever learned to not headbutt the person that she's trying to kiss. He wonders if she even remembers him.

He wonders if she still liked apples, and if she still kept the note that he had messily scrawled out the "do you like me" question on.

* * *

Shayne's first kiss that lasts longer than a second or two happens when he's about 16 or so.

He's at a party, and he isn't drinking, despite the fact that his two closest friends, who had invited him to tag along, had beer on their breaths somewhere among the crowd of teenagers scream-singing the lyrics of an Usher song. He's still holding a cup, to try and make others think that he's not a narc, but he's genuinely wondering if he should call one of his brothers to pick him up.

A couple of girls had noticed him hugging the wall and had tried to make small talk, but they were all a bit tipsy and he didn't want to overstep, plus he hadn't really felt any kind of connection to them. Really, the only thing that had endeared him to any of them was the fact that they had all said some variant of "you're super funny" at some point in their conversation. (He had to admit, even though they were inebriated, his pride swelled a bit at each compliment.)

It was about two hours into the party (at least, from when he and his friends had joined, "fashionably late," as they had joked), and one of the hosts - a girl in the grade above him, who was in bids for Prom Queen and was doing her best to ensure that she got the crown - had managed to coerce him off of the wall and toward the game of Spin the Bottle that had just started with a couple of other people from her class.

He remembers how sweaty his hand was as he put it onto the lukewarm glass of the beer bottle. He remembers wondering who had drunk the beer out of it as it spun round and around the sloppy circle of teenagers.

He remembers in detail the indecipherable look that the boy had given him when it had stopped with its barrel pointed at his ankle. The boy had really light green eyes, with an olive complexion and ear-length black hair, and his smile was lopsided and beautiful as he locked eyes with Shayne. There was a bit of stubble across his jawline, and his eyelashes were thick and long, small freckles loosely scattered across the apples of his cheeks. He was gorgeous, and Shayne remembers that he let out a strained sort of yell when one of the girls next to him asked "Well, are you gonna kiss him or not?!"

Shayne had leaned forward first, letting the other guy take the initiative. When their lips met, the girls in the circle had started whooping and hollering. Shayne could taste the Natty Lite on the guy's lips, but he really didn't mind it, even if it was, in retrospect, a really shitty beer. His hands had positioned themselves like so - one holding the back of the guy's head, the other resting on his shoulder. The guy's hands had a similar positioning, with one cupping Shayne's cheek and the other on Shayne's left shoulder. Through the jacket and the long-sleeved shirt that Shayne was wearing, he could feel the warmth of his touch, and that only made him want to stay in that moment even longer. There were no fireworks, no crescendoes in the music in his head, no sudden realization that this was what he was missing in his life.

The kiss had lasted for a solid 4 or so seconds, but then he felt another person's hand clasp his wrist and pull him back, and he opened his eyes to find that the same was happening to the other guy. He remembers his hearing being a bit cloudy for the rest of the night, and that he had worried that he had somehow gotten buzzed from just the taste of the beer on the guy's mouth.

He remembers not telling anyone about it (until Damien asked him about it three years later in passing), and he remembers feeling the same flush and heat rise to his cheeks when he passed the guy in the hallway two days later.

He didn't even learn the guy's name, but he thinks that he follows him on Instagram.

* * *

Shayne's first kiss with someone that he actually started a relationship with doesn't happen till he's about 22.

Her name was Riley, and she was super funny. She had big blue eyes that contrasted against her dark brown skin, and her hair was tightly coiled, styled in an afro. She was gorgeous inside and out, with a wicked sense of humor (wicked in the good sense, although Shayne had to admit that sometimes he was floored by how dark her comedy could get) and one of the kindest hearts he had ever seen.

It was about three months after meeting her that he had realized that he had a crush on her. He noticed how his chest got tighter and his face got warmer when he was around her, and he remembers the way that he gushed about how beautiful she was to Damien over the phone at least twice a week.

Damien, ever the wingman, had assured him that he should "go for it," and that she "totally likes you back, man."

Shayne spent about two months mulling it over, much to his entire friend group's chagrin. By that point, everybody had noticed that he had a crush on her, and they were just waiting for him to make a move. He'd had half a mind to never act on his feelings just to spite them, but eventually he realized that he should just be happy.

At a mutual friend's birthday party, he remembers asking her if she was seeing anybody, and she had cheekily replied with, "Not yet."

In retrospect, it was pretty clear that she had feelings for Shayne too, but at the time, he was so in his own head that it never occurred to him that she would have ever reciprocated.

He remembers how the dark lighting of the club they were in made her features even more striking, and how he looked up at her, and her putting a hand on his shoulder. He remembers stuttering each word as though he were speaking again for the first time, and how she had laughed and asked if he was okay.

"Can I kiss you?" he had blurted out. He knew that those weren't the right words, not the ones he had wanted to say. He had wanted to ask her on a date first, and after the date, he would maybe try and ask to kiss her, but he hadn't wanted to ask her that then, especially since he had never insinuated that he had liked her up to that point besides asking if she were single. He was rambling on and on incessantly in his own head and he was too focused on his inner panic to hear her reply, and her hand on his shoulder was really nice and -

When she leaned down to kiss him, it was a little more like the stereotypical first kiss you'd find in television shows and romcoms. There was a tiny spark, a flicker of a flame, and the two of them were much more synchronized in their movements to allow the kiss to be actually decent. She had more experience than he did, and it showed, but he didn't really mind it all that much. He was just happy that she was kissing him, and it was nice.

She had on some kind of flavored chapstick, that he never did ask her about. After their relationship had ended (mutually, after they had both realized that they were better as friends), he remembers that he had searched local stores for the lip balm, trying to pinpoint the flavor of it.

Their relationship lasted a year. He still buys that chapstick to this day.

It's mango-flavored.

* * *

The first kiss that Shayne shares with someone on camera for Smosh is when he's 27.

It's a short scene, and a really short kiss. He has to kiss Courtney (which he finds as awkward as the thought of kissing a sister), but Courtney makes sure that he's okay and that he feels safe.

They have to do a couple of takes, since the first one (his actual first Smosh kiss) is a bit awkward. He doesn't know where to put his arms, and he's not sure if he's giving too much force or too little. Every time they move, they bump noses, and after a few seconds, Courtney pulls back.

Shayne knows that Courtney's an angel after she says, "It's alright, you're just nervous," instead of insulting him to hell and back for what he knows to be the worst kiss of all time.

After the shoot, he and Courtney get ice cream to commemorate their first on-screen kiss together, and he asks her about her experiences with kissing people.

She's younger than him by about 5 years, so he assumes that she's got less kisses under her belt than he does, but to his surprise, she mentions a lot of kisses she shared with her friends, who were eager to practice kissing, and then the kisses with the boys that she had had tiny infatuations with when she was in middle school and high school.

He asks her if it's normal for people to have kissed people of both genders and liked it, and she responds with, "Yeah, why wouldn't it be?"

The sentiment sticks with him for the next few days, and he does a lot of reading, a lot of soul searching, a lot of avoiding talking to Damien because he's worried that his best friend won't understand or accept his thoughts and emotions. He settles on a couple of different terms.

In his head, he calls himself "bisexual" for the first time. And then he says it out loud for the first time.

It's to no one but himself, and in hindsight, it was definitely not as big a deal as it had felt it was. He had made a mountain of a mole-hill, but at the time, he felt like saying it would be confirming it as true, and the thought absolutely terrified the fuck out of him.

Staring at his own reflection in the mirror, he mouths the word first, takes a second, adjusts his posture, and then whispers it like a secret. And it feels GOOD. So he ups the volume a bit, and it feels GOOD. And then he says it even a little louder, and it feels FUCKING GOOD.

Eventually, he's doing everything in his power to keep from shouting his newfound identity label to the world.

The first person he tells is his mom, and she's supportive, even though she has to take a minute to adjust to the new information and absorb it. He then tells his dad, and he's similarly supportive, and then he tells his brothers, and they're so kind, and he sits in his bathroom and cries happy tears for three hours.

He still avoids talking to Damien, just because he doesn't want to lose him. Having his family was already something that wasn't guaranteed. He couldn't bear to lose the one person that he thought understood him better than anyone else on Earth.

* * *

The first time he kisses someone and wishes that they were someone else is during that same year.

It's his first very serious girlfriend, and their relationship lasts two and a half years or so. This is toward the tail-end of their relationship, and Shayne feels like trash for the way that he feels. He doesn't want to admit it, but he's been feeling this for a while, but he's never really truly wished she was someone else until this moment.

Her name is Daniella, and she's a super pretty, super tan girl that plays the guitar and sings around some clubs in LA. She's almost stereotypically Californian. She has a bit of a valley girl drawl to her speech, her hair is sun-bleached blonde, and her fingers are calloused from plucking the strings of her guitar every night. She smells like the ocean and has a noticeable tan line anytime she wears a bikini. She's almost perfect, but the problem is that Shayne doesn't want almost perfect.

His eyes closed, he feels her lips against his. They're fine, but they're not who he wants it to be. If it weren't for the fact that he can smell the suntan lotion on her arms when she wraps them around his neck, he could almost pretend that she was someone else.

After a few seconds, she seems to notice his hesitance and body language, and pulls away. Her raspy voice has a tinge of worry to it as she asks him, "What's up?"

He shakes his head. "S-Sorry, this isn't working out. I... I'm interested in someone else."

She moves her arms away from his shoulders and takes a tiny step back. What's almost certainly a mere foot of distance between them feels like a bottomless ravine. "Well, I guess I can't say that I didn't see this coming. It's... like, you've been really distant for the past couple weeks. I didn't wanna bring it up since, like, I was worried that you were upset, or just busy, but, like, I should have, shouldn't I?"

He blinks a few times. It takes a bit to process what she's saying. She already knows that he's bisexual at this point, so that's not the reason why she would be upset. He wonders if she has any guesses as to who it is that he wishes were standing where she's at right now.

"You don't have to tell me who it is, but, like, for me, it's pretty obvious. You've got a thing for Damien, and that's totally fine. Unless that's not who you're talking about..."

She's rambling, trying to avoid the fact that she's clearly a bit hurt by what's going on, and he knows that she is. He nods his head in confirmation.

"I figured. It's alright. I'm glad that you know what you want. I'm happy that you, like, are so comfortable with me to be able to share that with me. You two are, like, perfect for each other. I'm always going to be your friend, you know that, right?"

He gives her a smile, and says, "Yeah. I know. Thank you. I love you."

She steps forward again and they hug, her arms enveloping him and keeping him safe like a security blanket. "I love you too, Shayne. Now, if you're gonna try and get with the boy, you should do it soon."

He knows. God, he knows.

* * *

His first time actually initiating a kiss, truly and deeply wanting it, happens when he's 28 years old.

For what had felt like years, he thought that this was normal. Friends were supposed to make you feel giddy, with bubbles in your throat and butterflies in your stomach. They were supposed to give you blushes and make you laugh even if they haven't said a joke. They were supposed to be handsome and charming, and almost certainly your type, once you finally realized what your type actually is.

Friends were supposed to make you feel the way that Shayne felt about Damien.

The two are hanging out, playing Mario Party together, like they used to before they were both too goddamn busy to spend that much time with each other. It feels like home after being on the road for what feels like centuries. It feels like coming back to someone who's waiting for you after you've spent time away.

Shayne glances over at Damien every now and again and falls in love all over.

Each joke that's made, each time Damien mocks him for being genuinely bad at the game, each laugh that comes out of his mouth, Shayne feels his heart slowly break inside. Just a little. Not enough to genuinely hurt, just enough to make the mending that much sweeter.

He comes out to Damien that night, after two rounds of Damien winning in a row, and the brunet asks him why he didn't do it sooner. Shayne tells him it's because he was worried about how it might make things different. Damien assures him that it doesn't.

Shayne tells him, "God, Damien, I really hope that it does."

They're sitting close to each other on the couch, despite the fact that either one of them could easily move and have enough room on their own. Their knees are in the quantum state of just barely touching but not enough to feel it. Damien sets down his controller, and Shayne follows his lead. Blue eyes meet hazel ones, and before Shayne knows it, he's placed a hand onto Damien's shoulder.

"C... Can I, can I just kiss you right quick?" he asks.

(Later on, he kicks himself in the ass for the way that he phrased it, but at the time, his brain was running on autopilot and he had had no time to filter what he'd just said. Damien looks back on it fondly and always says that it's "cute." Shayne always blushes whenever Damien looks at him after saying that.)

Damien nods, and for a second, Shayne debates letting Damien do the work, but he doesn't want to be the one being kissed anymore. Not when it's so important. Not when he wants to kiss and be kissed so badly.

Not when it's him.

So Shayne closes the gap, and it feels like finding his matching puzzle piece. The spark that had previously been there for the other kisses Shayne had shared was now a full on, raging fire, and the feeling of Damien's hands starting to slowly move their way around Shayne's neck is the gasoline.

Shayne is not Damien's first kiss, and Damien is not Shayne's.

But goddammit, Shayne wants to make sure that he's doing whatever it takes to make sure that he's his next, and his next, and his next.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr @sunflowershayne , @damimem , @smoshfromlastnight , @askbrandonmcmillan , & @askmarcuswilson for more lovey dovey pride stuff
> 
> follow me on twitter @shaynesdegree for also that


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